


Pulling Your Strings

by ladykiki



Category: CW Network RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mutants, Gen, Mind Control, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 12:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5047699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladykiki/pseuds/ladykiki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wake up, Jared.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pulling Your Strings

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my trope_bingo Mind Control square.

_Jared._

The voice wasn’t his. He knew it wasn’t, but it felt like his. It whispered from the part of his brain that told him not to touch the surface of the stove when it was hot, or to keep his fingers away from sharp knives, or to remember to look both ways before he crossed the street. 

At one point, that internal voice had sounded like his mother, sometimes his father. After he found Jeff and got involved with other mutants, it had mostly started to sound like Jensen—at least, it had when his friend hadn’t been there next to him, passing dry judgment without the necessity for interior dialogue. But this voice didn’t sound like Jensen, either. 

_Wake up, Jared._

He woke up, eyes opening to semi-darkness. He lived in the city, in an apartment on the third floor. His bedroom window overlooked the complex’s parking lot. His room was never completely dark, not unless he pulled the blackout curtains and he tried to save those for daytime naps. He liked waking up with the sun. The clock read 3:52. He’d been asleep for two hours.

_Get dressed. Dark colors._

Jared owned a lot of dark clothes—deep blue button-ups, a dark purple and a darker green, about two dozen black band and novelty t-shirts—but his fingers reached for the Kevlar reinforced catsuit hiding tucked away in the back. He’d never worn it, had no intention of wearing it because he wasn’t a superhero and wasn’t a part of Morgan’s team no matter what noises the guy made, but it fit him like a second skin and he pulled it on now.

He left without grabbing his keys, without his wallet or cell phone, without taking the time to put on his shoes. He didn’t live in a bad part of town—the nature of his power would have made that untenable, and since that was the reason he wasn’t on the compound, he wasn’t going to torture himself with the next worst thing—but glass was still a concern, or needles, or—anything, really, that could cause injury, like an especially sharp rock. 

He couldn’t find the concern, though, the emotion sliding past him like it belonged to someone else. He couldn’t, he realized, feel much of anyone, and that realization was enough to have him reaching for his power. 

_Easy, Jared, shhh. It’s all right. Just listen to me and everything will be all right._

_Who are you?_ But it almost didn’t matter. He kept walking, steady and sure, feet rolling heel to toe, never even considered stopping.

_Why, sweetie. I’m your very own Jiminy Cricket._

*

The gas station was only four blocks from Jared’s apartment, a bright island on an otherwise dark, deserted street. There was a squad car parked out front, next to a used-to-be-green beater, but he could feel the cop inside the mini mart with the clerk, which was what he wanted.

Wasn’t.

He tracked through gasoline on his way past the pumps, body warm and loose, humming in anticipation. 

The bell over the door jangled when he stepped through. The tile felt cool and slick beneath his feet. The clerk glanced at him, glanced away. He couldn’t see what Jared was wearing over the rack of chips. The cop looked at him, narrowed his eyes—didn’t look away. 

Jared smiled. His feet stuck just a little when he moved. He saw the cop’s eyes dart to his feet. 

“You got shoes, son?” the guy demanded, shifting toward Sam and squaring off against him, trying to look bigger. He kept his hand away from gun. 

“No, sir.” He veered away, going down the next aisle over. He couldn’t quite see the rest of the store in the glass, but he didn’t need to. He could feel the clerk’s attention, a kind of electric buzz at the back of his mind, curiosity and apprehension and excitement. Whatever was happening sure beat whatever had been happening before for entertainment. He could hear the cop rounding the shelf, could feel the guy’s irritation sparking along his fingers. 

Wondered, fleetingly, if the man didn’t have some sort of mutation. 

“I’m gonna have to ask you to leave, then, son.”

“C’mon,” he whined. “I’m just looking for a drink. See?” He pulled the nearest door open, grabbed the first bottle—a Mountain Dew—his hand landed on. 

“I’m sorry, but you need to leave.”

Any other day, he would have. Instead, he turned back to the rows of drinks. “I just need a drink, man.” He just needed the cop to come closer.

He did. 

_Take his gun._

“Son—” The instant the cop’s hand landed on his shoulder, Jared moved. He struck hard and fast, his fist catching the guy in the face. His other hand closed around the cop’s gun. The cop staggered back, off hand going to his nose, dominant to his holster. Shock widened dark eyes. 

“I just wanted a drink,” his mouth said. His arm raised the gun, aimed. _No_ , he thought. He tried to lower his arm, tried to pull away, tried to step backwards, but it was like standing in a cage. He couldn’t move. His finger tightened on the trigger. 

Blood and brain tissue splattered against the far shelves. The cop’s body collapsed. If he could have, Jared would have slumped to the floor beside him. _What did you do?_ he demanded, distant horror hollowing out his belly. 

“Oh my God!” The clerk. 

_I didn’t do anything,_ , the voice told him. _You did._

_I wouldn’t._

_Take care of the clerk, Jared. He’s going to ruin everything._

Jared wanted him to. He wanted the clerk to run out of the store, to call 911, to get away, to get help, to find someone who could stop Jared from hurting him, from hurting anyone else. 

He turned around, instead, taking the shortest route to the front door, his long strides eating up the distance. The clerk’s gaze jerked up to his when he rounded the last shelf, and the kid backpedaled. His hands came up. 

“I won’t say anything!” he said. “I didn’t see you, man, I swear. Just let me go. Please. I won’t tell them anything, I swear. Just—please.”

“I’m sorry.” He was— _God_ , he was—but that didn’t stop his arm from lifting, didn’t stop the gun from leveling at the kid’s head, didn’t stop his finger from pulling the trigger. It didn’t stop his head from turning, from tilting up, to look straight into the security camera. It didn’t stop him from firing one more shot.

*

_Who are you?_ he demanded again, once his body was curled behind the wheel of the clerk’s beater, foot on the gas and headed (he thought) to the warehouse district. His eyes wouldn’t deviate from the little patch of black asphalt illuminated by the headlights, his hands wouldn’t so much as twitch on the steering the wheel, but his mind felt almost like his own again, just a little disconnected.

He almost wished it didn’t.

_You haven’t figured it out yet?_ the voice taunted, darkly amused and mockingly scandalized. Jared had heard that voice before, he knew he had. _Tsk, Jared. Aren’t you supposed to be the smart one?_

No, he wasn’t. That had always been Jensen. Jared was just the personable one, the one who reached out to people and engaged them and tried to get them to laugh, to be happy, because he didn’t like the way it felt when they weren’t. Jared was just the one Jensen fed the answers to when he wasn’t comfortable giving them himself. Jensen. . . .

( _You’re the only one, Jay. The only one who has never let me down._ )

Jensen had always been the smart one. Always.

_Don’t worry, sugar plum, the voice cooed. You’ll be seeing me soon enough._

*

The warehouse was dark, only illuminated by a handful of streetlights, all widely spaced. There was graffiti on the walls, and on the giant, steel shipping containers stacked around the yard. The gate was already open so Jared drove straight through. 

The closer he’d gotten to the warehouse, the clearer his mind had felt, the more present he’d felt in his own body, the more he’d felt the gentle tug in his belly that was how he usually tracked mutants. Even years later, he still hadn’t figured out how it worked, how his power latched onto mutants he couldn’t properly sense, why it chose one mutant over another. Jeff was certain there was a reason, but no telepath, no healer, and no clairvoyant had ever been able to explain. No other empath he’d ever met had been able to do it at all. The one thing he knew—ok, three things—was that his power was tugging him to the warehouse, he couldn’t sense another mutant anywhere nearby, and there were five people clustered fairly close together inside it. 

Jared stopped well clear of the warehouse. He flexed his right hand, just to see if he could, and felt surprised when his wrist and fingers responded. Did that mean the next step was his choice? Would the voice let him leave? After bringing him this far, he doubted it. 

Jensen was patrolling tonight. Jared turned his head to consider the cell phone sitting in the passenger seat. He’d taken it from the clerk’s pocket and couldn’t say if it had been whim or deliberate. If he was supposed to call someone now. Before he could second-guess it, before he could really think about it or reason out the consequences, he scooped it up and dialed Tom. 

Tom picked up midway through the second ring. “Strong Man,” he said, the code name they used among themselves instead of the media-given nicknames. 

“Hey, man,” Jared answered, and grimaced when he realized Tom wasn’t going to know who he was. Jeff was going to have his hide. “This is Jared.”

_And what do you think he’s going to do when he realizes you left two bodies and video evidence?_

He swallowed hard. 

“Jared,” Tom answered carefully, “what’s up?”

“I think I’m in trouble.” Which, understatement. He knew he was in trouble. He just hadn’t wrapped his mind around how much yet. 

“What do you need?”

_A time machine._ He cleared his throat. “How soon can you get to the warehouse district?”

There was a beat of silence, during which anxiety wrapped lovingly around his heart and the tug in his gut became more insistent, the first hints of a foreign and familiar power teasing at the back of his mind. “Fifteen minutes,” Tom said. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Is there someone with you, Jared?”

There wasn’t, except for the fact that there was. He didn’t answer, and didn’t know if that was his choice or the voice’s.

“Get away from them. Don’t engage, Jared. You hear me?”

“I won’t,” he agreed, already knowing he had no intention of following that directive, the tug now almost painful. 

He left the cell on the passenger seat when he climbed out of the car. He wouldn’t need it. Tom would bring Mike. Between the two of them, they could handle whatever Jared found inside the warehouse. Probably. He hoped they’d at least be able to get the normals to safety.

He ignored the nagging voice whispering at the back of his mind that said neither man stood a chance against a telepath, that said he should as Tom had said and leave. 

There were two person-sized doors and one roll-away truck entrance, stopped partially open. After making a quick circle of the building, he could be certain whatever his power had latched onto was inside. The feelings he picked up from the individuals he could sense were tense, anger simmering under the surface, wary and watchful and singing with anticipation. To Jared, it felt like the mental equivalent of a powder keg just waiting for a match. 

_Isn’t it delightful?_ the voice murmured. _One little push, and off they’ll go._

_Get out of my head._

Faint laughter answered him, but the hint of pressure faded away. Overt pressure, anyway; he wasn’t stupid enough to think his visitor was actually gone. But his hand clenched easily into a fist, and his body approached the door as instructed. 

None of the men who looked up at his entrance had Jared’s height, the tallest only coming up to his collarbone. They all wore jeans, a few wore tank tops despite the night’s chill, and four had easily visible tattoos. Three wore red armbands; the remaining two wore black. They stood between two vehicles.

_Drug deal_ flashed through Jared’s mind. He should’ve listened to Tom, his power be damned.

_Now where would be the fun in that?_ the voice purred coyly. 

“Yo, _ese_ ,” Red Leader called, chin jutting in greeting and focused entirely on Jared. “You bring the money?”

“Money?”

Blue Leader shoved forward, Blue Lackey right with him. “The fuck, man? We had a deal.”

Red grinned. “Stretch, there, offered a better deal.”

Blue pulled a knife. Jared caught the gleam of the polished steel clearly, the way light slid over it, caressing from base to tip, and then everything—blurred. He didn’t remember blinking or moving or even breathing, but when he opened his eyes he found himself between the trucks, his hand aching from how tightly he was gripping the knife, blade buried in the chest of the last gang member, covered in blood, the other four scattered over the floor. In pieces.

Jared felt sick. 

Suddenly, someone clapped, sharp crack of skin on skin, and his head came up, around. Danneel smirked at him, clapped again, and again, slow, just off time with her steps. “That,” she declared sweetly, “went even better than I thought it would.”

“You did this?” He felt shaky, like he’d spent all day with a fever. His fingers were stiff when he pried them of the knife handle. The blade clattered when it hit the floor. He scrubbed his hands against his thighs but the suit was tacky with blood, didn’t get rid of it. “Why?”

“Do you remember when we met?” Her hips swayed back and forth, slow and exaggerately, hypnotizing. “Me and Jensen were sitting on our bench in the courtyard, just minding our own business, the way we always had. And then there you were, all stick-thin limbs and hair, with dimples and every kid in school clamoring to be your friend. Do you remember that, Padalecki?”

He nodded. Jensen had been a bright spark at the back of his mind the instant he’d stepped foot in Richardson. He’d known, more surely than he’d ever known anything in his life, that he had to find him.

Danneel’s eyes were cold, her full lips twisted in an ugly sneer. “You could have had anyone in the school,” she informed him. “Anyone. And you just had to take Jensen away from me.”

“I didn’t—” White-hot pain drilled through his head, hit the base of his skull and expanded, suffusing his brain, radiating down his spine. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t hear—

“Do you know,” she said into the void the pain left, “how long it took me to figure out I could do more than just hear other people’s thoughts?” His forehead was pressed to the concrete, his hands clenched around his temples. His breath came in wet, hard sobs and his body shook, heart pounding. He didn’t have the focus to listen to her, but he couldn’t escape her voice. “How long it took me to figure out how I was going to get back at you?”

“Jensen—”

“Is mine.” Her hand carded through his hair, gentle at first, before she dug in her fingernails and drew lines of fire down his scalp while she crouched beside him. “If I can’t have him, no one will. Starting with you.”

Jared huffed, couldn’t have said which emotion drove it. What he did know? Jensen had never let anyone choose his friends for him. Jared pushed up on wobbly arms to look at her. “So, what? You’re going to kill me?”

“Kill you?” Her eyebrow quirked, genuine amusement lighting up her face and making her, momentarily, genuinely beautiful. “No, Jared, I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to leave you here. SWAT is already on their way. They’ll get here before your friends, and they’re angry. After all, you killed one of theirs. They’re going to lock you away for the rest of your life, and you know the best part? You’re going to let them.”

He laughed briefly, could feel the way it bordered on hysterical. “Why would I do that?”

She grinned. “Because you killed seven people, Padalecki. Because the public outcry against a mutant murdering all those people is going to demand a scapegoat, and it can either be you—a single, deranged individual—or it can be mutants. Everything Jeff worked so hard to build going to go up in smoke. Kids will be hunted. Your friends will be hunted. Jensen will be hunted. All because of you. 

“Unless you stay. Unless you’re their scapegoat.”

She stroked his cheek gently. “How long do you think you’ll last in prison, Jared?” She stood. “How long would Jensen?”

Jared couldn’t move as he watched her walk away, and not because she was holding him in place. He’d never imagined he’d end up in prison, but he knew what they were like—knew how small the cells were, how many people lived practically on top of each other, how they dealt with mutants. He’d be locked away, surrounded by anger and helplessness, his mind drugged open, and he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t face it. 

The doors burst open. Danneel walked calmly out as SWAT poured in from both people-sized doors like ants from a disturbed ant hill, guns raised, yelling at him to put his hands up, to get on his belly, to not move, and Jared laughed. He kept his hands over his head and dropped to his belly and couldn’t stop laughing. Seven people were dead because he made a friend in ninth grade. 

Hands grabbed him, hard and unyielding, and he didn’t fight them. They wrenched his arms behind his back, pulled the zip-tie tight enough to turn his hands purple, and he didn’t fight them. He didn’t have a choice.


End file.
